At Gettysburg, Cyclorama is gone but not forgotten

Workers monitor progress in the restoration of Paul Philippoteaux's 1884 "The Battle of Gettysburg", a 360-degree oil painting, at the Cyclorama Center in Gettysburg, Pa. The Gettysburg Cyclorama underwent a $15 million restoration to repair more than a century's worth of serious damage. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

GETTYSBURG — A drum-shaped building that once housed a circular painting of Pickett’s Charge has become another memory at Gettysburg. Harry and Gloria Porter of Connellsville, Pa., on Tuesday sauntered to the grassy spot where the building stood.

“We wanted to see where the Cyclorama was,” Gloria Porter said.

The Cyclorama building was demolished in March so the Gettysburg National Military Park grounds could appear as they did in the 1860s.

The Porters carry a small book of photographs to share with people they meet. A snapshot of a younger Harry Porter with former Cyclorama director Troy Harman is included with pictures of Harry’s grandfather, who fought at Gettysburg; Thomas Jefferson Hartman, the Confederate who became William H. Porter’s best friend after the Civil War, and the tombstone Harry Porter erected on Hartman’s grave.

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“We enjoy the battlefield and the memories,” 89-year-old Harry Porter said. “I remember the Cyclorama. I always thought they should bring back the electric map. I always loved the map.”

The large panels of the Cyclorama painting were restored and moved in 2008 to the new National Park Service visitors’ center. The $103 million Gettysburg Museum & Visitors Center was built off the main battlefield.

The plan for the center did not include the map, which had lights showing the key battles in July 1863 at Gettysburg. The 1963 electric map was sold to Scott Roland, who is restoring it in Hanover.

The Cyclorama came down for $3.4 million, a quarter of the cost to repair it.

Louise Matweecha, a visitor from Hazelton, said she liked having the Cyclorama on the battlefield.

“Everything was right here,” she said. “You could come out and see the guns and everything. I think it should be right where everything was.”

The location of the former Cyclorama was part of Cemetery Ridge, part of the Union line not far from Pickett’s Charge, according to Katie Lawhon of the National Park Service.

“While the building was there, it was hard to visualize the fighting,” Lawhon said.

Visitors can better see the fish-hook shape of the Union line at Gettysburg, she said.

Visitors interviewed at the site on Tuesday had differing understandings of where the Union lines were, but they said the open space helps them visualize the battlefield.

“We have more work to do,” Lawhon said.

Monuments that war veterans dedicated on the site in the 1880s will be replaced, she said. They are the 5th US Artillery Battery F tablet, the 90th Pa. Infantry monument, the 88th Pa. Infantry monument, 1st Mass. Sharpshooters position marker and the 12th Mass. Infantry monument.

Ziegler’s Ravine will be recreated. The fence line of 1863 will be rebuilt. More trees will be planted in Ziegler’s Grove.

The restoration, financed by the Gettysburg Foundation, is to start in January 2014. An estimated cost was not available.

No signs mark the location of the building, designed by influential architect Richard Neutra. Part of a $1 billion 1950s program to modernize the national park system, the $1 million building opened in 1963.

“It was here?” said Nate Barrington, a Gettysburg visitor from Rhode Island. “That’s why I feel a little disjointed. It’s been 20 to 30 years.”

Phil Dimick of Penn Run, Pa., was 14 when he attended the grand opening of the Cyclorama at the 100th commemoration of the Battle of Gettysburg. He returned Tuesday for the 150th.

Dimick said he missed the Cyclorama. He also preferred the former museum and visitors’ center that was demolished.

“It was a bunch of stuff all crammed together,” Dimick said. “The cannons were next to each other and you could compare them all at one time. They had cases and cases of muskets. If you had items from the Civil War, you could find the item and figure out what it was. If you looked around enough they had everything.”

That was when a teenager could buy a period cavalry saber for $20.

“We rented a room in a woman’s house for five bucks a night,” he said. “Now it’s almost $300 a night just for this event.”

Get more information on Gettysburg and news on 150th anniversary events on the Gettysburg 150th anniversary site: www.ydr.com/gettysburg150th